Relative Bearing is Useless in a World of Fiction
by C208 Driver
Summary: How does one find their place in a world that shouldn't exist? Where all you skills, all your training and most of you beliefs are thrown right out the window? This is my story.


Relative Bearing is Useless in a World of Fiction

Chapter 1

"Roger that, buddy. Back on the ramp at 1951 with a load of backhaul."

"Got it, any other trips for me?" I respond on the radio to the dispatcher. "That's it, thanks for helping us out."

"Hey that's what you pay me for." I finish off, almost cursing my own idiocy. It seems I can never say no to work and today was no different, technically a day off I had heard my phone ring at five thirty in the morning. Apparently something went out at the NWT Power Corp's hydro plant down by Talston Rapids and no other caravan driver was picking up their phone. Me? Well they knew I would pick up my phone no matter what. Sometimes I just hated being dependable. I returned to my Kindle and was thumbing through a book, couldn't remember the name of it but it was good, a critique of foreign policy appeasement.

I glanced up for a moment and noticed that there seemed to be weather building up, not that uncommon as the lake had a tendency to generate towering cumulus and thunderstorms during the daytime. Reaching over to the screen on my instrument panel, I turned on the weather radar to get an indication on what I would be flying through or around if it was too big. But nothing, just the bar making its arc and the occasional green spec. I checked the tilt, and was able to paint the ground clutter but when I tilted up to the developing cell, I got nothing. Typical, these weather radars were more witchcraft than science and only seemed to work in clear blue skies. In flight safety they told me how it worked, but still in my mind it was PFM or Pure effing magic.

I let out a sigh and dialed up Arctic Radio on the frequency and after the initial call, I got a response. "Kilo Alpha Yankee go ahead with the request."

"Kilo Alpha Yankee, just wondering if you're picking up any strikes just east of the north arm."

"Nothing in the last hour, there was a squall line that moved through earlier but our latest PIREP from First Air 125 reported sky clear."

"Okay thanks, looks like I'm getting a large isolated CB about ten miles south of Drybones Bay, going to be deviating east of track to stay clear."

"Understood, Kilo Alpha Yankee. Let us know when you are clear and your revised estimate."

"Wilco," I finished and returned to the task at hand. Looking down at the GPS I expected to see that my groundspeed would have bled off somewhat, but what I saw made it clear something was screwy with the receiver. Instead of indicating a groundspeed of around 130 knots, it was indicating over 260 knots. I had flown these Cessna Caravans for a couple of years and the best I've ever seen was 210 in cruise, and that was only because I caught a low level jetstream and was getting kicked around by the chop but here I was indicating 50 knots higher than my record with not turbulence. Obviously the GPS had taken this moment to pack it in.

"Okay Ryan, get your head back into the game." I said to myself, as I rolled the control column to the right, and what happened was the first time in a long time I was scared flying. Nothing happened, the airplane continued straight and level, and I feared the worst, a broken control cable. Looking out the right window I rolled the control column again and to my surprise, the aileron defected normally. At this point I was really starting to get nervous as my hands began to tremble with the rush of adrenaline. I looked out one of the rearmost windows that gave me a slight view of the tail and pulled on the control column all the way back. The elevator followed the command but the aircraft continued on its path towards the thunderstorm that was getting darker and darker by the minute.

This should be impossible, no this was impossible. There is no way that suddenly my airplane was no longer following Bernoulli's Principle but here I was, I might as well be flying in a vacuum. I looked down at my GPS and saw that the groundspeed was now clearing 400 knots. I knew that this was impossible, the maximum airframe speed was 175 knots and the wing spars should have failed long ago but the caravan was making no strange noises, like it was experiencing no stresses at all.

Getting back on the radio, I began transmitting. "Mayday, mayday , mayday. Kilo Alpha Yankee declaring emergency, flight control malfunction, entering severe convective cloud. One soul on board, three drums of diesel and two hours of fuel." I hoped beyond hope that my message got through as it began to grow dark around me. I increased the cockpit lighting as it was like the darkest night, before all hell seemed to break loose.

Without warning, my compass began spinning like mad and my heading indicator that was slaved to the compass did the same, the GPS lost position and all information cleared off with the word FLAG as well as all my navigation instruments flagged red to indicate no signal. This paled in comparison to what has happening outside, I was seeing what could only be described as St. Elmo's fire but it was not. I was getting the flicks of light in the correct places but the size and pattern was all wrong, instead of the small arcs it was long wispy tails of blue that seemed to grow. Eventually the entire outside skin was covered in this blue glow, and outside the black cloud had formed into a strange votex and I began hearing a strange reverberating sound that grew in intensity before I was suddenly bathed in light again.

As soon as the strange phenomenon appeared, it was gone again and it looked like I was in the clear. I had no idea what had just happened but I intended to keep it to myself unless I wanted a white padded room all to myself. I looked down at my instrument panel to get my bearings and that sickening feeling came back into the pit of my stomach. My navigation and GPS equipment was still knocked offline and my compass along with altimeter were not cooperating.

What I saw outside I knew was impossible because the landscape did not match. Instead of seeing the forests, rock and lakes of the Canadian Shield, there was an expanse of mountains in the distance and a large city with towering structures. Time to sound crazy.

"Hello, this is Kilo Alpha Yankee. I've lost my bearings and request DF steer." I transmitted this on every frequency I could think of. As I approached the city I really began questioning either my eyesight or my sanity. Above the city I saw what could only be described as ships and smaller craft zooming around the city. I turned my aircraft towards one of the long black streams heading into the city, and as I got closer I couldn't believe my eyes. They were skycars, and not just normal futuristic skycars, they were Mass Effect skycars. As in Commander Shepard, Normandy, 'ah yes, reapers' skycars. Now I knew I had lost it.

As I banked away from the line of traffic, I heard a strange sound and looked out my right window to see an honest to God UT-47 Kodiak in Alliance colors. The hatch opened up and I could see an officer looking at me and signalling me down, I wasn't sure who was more shocked, me or him. Although I could agree with him, perhaps this was one of those surreal dreams that I would wake from when I landed. Wouldn't be the first time I had weird dreams like this, although it was refreshing as the last Mass Effect dream I had involved a friend of mine trying to kill me with a Mass Effect shotgun, I think it was an Evicerator.

Pulling back the power, I began my descent and tried to find a place to land. Problem was, there was no really good place to set it down. Finally I found a clearing or promenade of sorts that would do the job if it weren't for the people. Hopefully these people would get the hint with a low pass. I set the flaps to twenty degrees and buzzed over the walkway at about one hundred feet. After I had gone far enough, I did a banking turn and selected the rest of the flap. Lining up, I could see that the people had in fact cleared away. Okay, so far, so good. Now to land here. It was tight, with trees about sixty feet apart, I had about three feet of wiggle room on either side.

I lined up and began my final descent and flared bringing the power back to idle, the mains squawked down on the pavement. Once I had positive contact, I let the nose drop, hauled the engine into reverse and applied max braking. I came to a stop not more than one hundred feet in front of a statue and shut down the engine. Folding down the stairs, I hopped out of the airplane and walked over to the main tire, and used it to brace myself as I threw up.

Hearing a strange whining sound, I turned around to see uniformed officers with weapons leveled at me. One of them began to speak, pretty sure it was German, while another responded in some sort of Asian tongue. Call me what you like, but I could never remember which was which. The German speaker then looked at me again, beginning to speak.

"Sorry fritz, I only speak English." I said, taking a seat on the tire. This got me some looks, before they gestured me to come with them, I could see a blue skycar not far off. Something told me that my cooperation was not optional. So either this was the most vivid dream I had ever had, I had really lost it, or I got myself transported into a world that shouldn't exsit.


End file.
